


Postcard #2

by ZoeWarren



Series: Postcards in Paradise [2]
Category: Death in Paradise
Genre: F/M, Gen, Postcards, clacton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-10
Updated: 2015-04-10
Packaged: 2018-03-22 03:53:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3713953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoeWarren/pseuds/ZoeWarren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few weeks after the events of the story "Postcard", Camille receives another one. Set in and around the events of episode 3x04.</p>
<p>Spoilers for Season 3 and onwards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Postcard #2

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't read the first in the series, this will make no sense at all.

Camille drove Humphrey home after his misadventure with the scotch bonnet chili, half worried and half exasperated. He sat in the passenger seat, a miserable bundle, still shaking and sweating, but his breathing at least had lost its previous ragged, gasping edge.

At the shack, she helped him out of the car, took his keys, and unlocked the door for him. He made a beeline for the bathroom and shut himself inside. Camille left his keys on the counter and wandered back outside again.

She stood on the beach, stared up at the stars, and finally let herself laugh, draining away the tension. Humphrey... He ran at everything headlong. It was worse than having a puppy, some days. Richard had been infuriating, but at least she hadn't lived in constant worry that he'd get himself killed if she turned her back for five minutes...

Her breath hitched at the thought, her laugh wobbled on the edge of sudden tears.

The more fool she.

Humphrey emerged onto the balcony, and Camille pulled up a smile, turned to face him.

"How are you feeling?"

Humphrey made a noise halfway between a whimper and 'so-so'. She crossed the sand and propelled him back into the shack. "Try and get some sleep. You'll feel better in the morning."

The tone of his answering grumble was dubious.

While Humphrey changed and climbed into bed, Camille stepped down into the kitchenette and poured him a glass of milk from the bottle her mother sent home with him. When she heard him settle, she crossed back to the bed and put the glass on his bedside table with a packet of antacids.

"There's more milk in the fridge. Is there anything else you need?"

He shook his head, no.

"Okay. Feel better, sir. I'll see you in the morning."

He whimpered quietly to himself as she left.

** **

It was late, the streets dark and quiet when she arrived home. Humphrey's escapade had sucked her dry, and climbing the steps to her front door seemed to take more effort than it should. She fished her mail from the box on her way through the door without looking and dropped the whole fistful of it on the table inside along with her keys. One particularly glossy item slid across the surface and dropped to the floor.

Grumbling, she swiped it up. And froze.

Another postcard. Grass green with cream lettering: "KEEP CALM AND CARAVAN ON."

The tears arrived on a surge of rage. Camille brandished the postcard at the ceiling. "This isn't funny, Richard!" She flung it back down on the table and stalked away.

** **

Camille ignored the card for two days.

She distracted herself with the continuing mystery of a homicidal flight attendant and all its various convolutions. But the case couldn't last forever. The team made their arrest, filed their paperwork, celebrated their victory, and left Camille back trying not to think about the postcard on her table.

On the morning of the third day she gave up and called Richard's mother in England.

"Mrs. Poole?"

"Yes, speaking."

"This is Camille Bordey calling from Saint Marie. I was a colleague of your son."

"Yes, I remember. How are you, Camille?"

Mrs. Poole sounded even more awkward than Camille felt. Camille regretted her choice already, but it was too late to back out now. They stumbled through pleasantries about the weather until Camille mercifully dragged the conversation around to the reason for her call.

"I was just wondering... You didn't..." Camille took a breath and forced the question out. "Did you happen to find a letter or a... a card addressed to me when you were going through Richard's things?"

"A letter? Oh. No, dear. Was there something you were expecting? Do you want me to... to look?"

"No, no..." Camille was just satisfying her curiosity. There was no reason her heart should be thudding in her chest. "It's nothing. I asked him to send me something from England while he was there... Anyway, it doesn't matter. I'm sorry to have bothered you."

"Not at all, dear. I'm sorry I couldn't help."

Camille's hands shook as she hung up the phone. _What if...?_ She considered calling the Met, starting in the mail room and working her way through every out tray in the organization. Just to be thorough, just to rule it out. But that was Richard's way. Camille had always worked better on intuition.

** **

Camille waited until after work, until she could concentrate and not be disturbed. She waved off Humphrey when he invited her along for sunset beers at the shack, mouthed vague apologies about meeting a friend, and drove home as quickly as she dared. She retrieved the first card from her bookshelf and sat at the table with both cards laid out in front of her.

A caravan in Clacton. Twice. Someone was trying to get her attention.

But why send a postcard with no message? And why a postcard and not a sealed envelope if the message was for her alone?

She flipped the cards over, stared at the blank space where the message should be. Where anyone could read it, if it were there.

Because, with a postcard, it looked like there was nothing to hide.

Camille pulled the first postcard from its evidence bag and held it up to the light, tilted it back and forth. No indentations. No discolourations. She closed her eyes, ran her fingers over the smooth surface, centimetre by centimetre. Flipped it over and tried the other side. Nothing.

The second postcard was equally blank.

Camille sat back. If she wanted to send a message out in the open that no one else could see, what would she use?

Camille scooped up both cards and her purse and drove herself back to the station.

** **

She started with black light. She held the wand over first one card, then the other. The white of the message side glowed an aching blue, but no message revealed itself. Nothing on the picture side either.

Heat next. She held the first card up against the bulb of her desk lamp and waited. And waited. She held it there until the paper grew hot to the touch, but no discolouration, no message. The same with the second.

Camille sighed, frustrated, and flipped on her computer. Feeling foolish, she pulled up Google and typed in 'invisible ink.'

She read through a couple of websites and sighed again. _Of course_ this was going to turn into a science experiment. She glanced around the office. Kettle, coffee filter, spray bottle of insect repellent. The only thing she didn't have was the one thing that would make it all work.

She _should_ wait until morning, visit the market before work.

Camille had never been patient, and she had waited long enough. She locked the station behind her and headed to La Kaz.

** **

"But, Camille, I don't understand why you want a cabbage at this time of night. If you're hungry..."

"No, maman. It's part of an investigation. I can't really..."

"A cabbage is part of an investigation?"

"Well, some chemical _in_ the cabbage." Catherine looked dubious, so Camille plunged on. It was only a lie if she turned out to be wrong. "It's... something Richard taught me. To test for different substances."

That little wrinkle of sympathy reappeared between her mother's brows at the mention of Richard's name, and Camille had to struggle not to flinch. Catherine had worn that expression whenever she looked at Camille for weeks after Richard's death. Camille didn't ever want to see it again.

But it got her her cabbage. And a knife to cut it with.

"Merci, Maman."

She kissed her mother, who now just looked mostly bewildered, and headed back to the station.

** **

The gym-sock smell of hot cabbage suffused the station, despite the open windows. Camille poked at the purple mush in the coffee filter, but it seemed to be done draining. Nothing but the occasional drip leached from the bottom. She dumped the soggy mess out into the garbage and considered the murky liquid in the coffee pot – dark purple with a faint white scum on top. Camille wrinkled her nose.

She retrieved the empty spray bottle of insect repellent and washed it thoroughly with soap and water. The last thing she needed was a strange chemical destroying any potential message before she could read it. She poured the red cabbage water inside and screwed the spray top back on.

Camille laid the postcards out on her desk, blank side up, one beside the other. She held the spray bottle above the first one, the cartoon of Clacton... and hesitated. She turned away, took the spray bottle and stepped out onto the verandah. A few test sprays proved the bottle was working perfectly. Ready to go. Camille sucked in a deep breath redolent of cabbage and tried to still the trembling in her hands.

She didn't want to be wrong.

Another breath and she stepped back inside, crossed the station to her desk. With a few quick sprays she misted the back of the first card. The white surface soaked purple. Camille held her breath and waited. Within seconds, greenish letters appeared on the left half of the card: _I'm so sorry, Camille. I didn't have a choice._

She fumbled to spray the second card. The liquid blotted and dripped under her clumsy hands. An eternity passed as she waited for the letters to form. _Please don't investigate. They_ are _watching._

Camille snatched the cards up off the desk, the paper damp and sticky in her fingers. Her heart raced, thready in her chest, and she couldn't quite catch her breath. She couldn't stop staring at the cards. At the words. His words.

She turned, actually turned expecting to find Richard standing behind her. She stared into the dimness of the empty station and nearly screamed her frustration.

"Arrogant, infuriating man!"

How dare he leave her alone with this? How dare he forbid her to find him?

How dare he go away where she couldn't yell at him...

She couldn't even write him back.

** **

Camille wasn't sure what to do with the postcards – with their messages exposed, it didn't seem safe to keep them around. She stood over the garbage can with a match in her hand for long minutes, but she couldn't bring herself to destroy them either. She had dreamed him alive and woken in confusion so many times in the weeks after his death... She couldn't shake the conviction that unless she kept the proof where she could see it, she would never know for sure what was real.

She agonized for days over where to hide them, the virtues of renting a safety deposit box over sneaking the cards into Fidel's house... until she realized that no one place was significantly safer than any other, and so she might as well just keep them close. So the evidence bags went back to the hidden place on her bookshelf she was already used to thinking of as Richard's.

And beyond that... all she could do was wait.


End file.
